Ecclesiastes 7 — Legacy Standard Bible

Wisdom and Folly Contrasted

7Better is a ^agood name than good oil,And better is the ^bday of one’s death than the day of one’s birth.²Better to go to a house of mourningThan to go to a house of feastingBecause ¹that is the ^aend of all mankind,And the living ^bputs this in his heart.³^aBetter is vexation than laughter,For ^bwhen a face is sad a heart may be merry.⁴The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,While the heart of fools is in the house of gladness.⁵Better to ^alisten to the rebuke of a wise manThan for one to listen to the song of fools.⁶For as the crackling sound of ^athorn bushes under a pot,So is the ^blaughter of the fool;And this too is vanity.⁷For ^aoppression gives a wise man over to madness,And a ^bbribe ¹destroys the heart.⁸Better is the ^aend of a matter than its beginning;^bBetter is patience of spirit than haughtiness of spirit.⁹Do not be ¹^,^aeager in your spirit to be vexed,For vexation rests in the bosom of fools.¹⁰Do not say, “Why is it that the former days were better than these?”For it is not from wisdom that you ask about this.¹¹Wisdom along with an inheritance is goodAnd an ^aadvantage to those who see the sun.¹²For ^awisdom is a ^bshadow of protection as money is a shadow of protection,And the advantage of knowledge is that ^cwisdom preserves the lives of its masters.¹³See the ^awork of God,For who is ^bable to straighten what He has bent?¹⁴^aIn the day when there is good be of good cheer,But ^bin the day when there is evil see—God has made the one as well as the otherSo that man will ^cnot find out anything that will be after him.

¹⁵I have seen everything during my ^adays of vanity; there is ^ba righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is ^ca wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing. ¹⁶Do not be excessively ^arighteous, and do not ^bbe overly wise. Why should you make yourself desolate? ¹⁷Do not be excessively wicked, and do not be a simpleminded fool. Why should you ^adie before your time? ¹⁸It is good that you seize one thing and also not ¹let go of the other; for the one who ^afears God comes forth with ²both of them.

¹⁹^aWisdom strengthens a wise man more than ten men with power who are in a city. ²⁰Indeed, ^athere is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins. ²¹Also, do not give your heart to all words which are spoken, so that you will not hear your slave ^acursing you. ²²For your heart also knows that you likewise have many times cursed others.

²³I tested all this with wisdom, and I said, “I will be wise,” ^abut it was far from me. ²⁴What has been is far away and ^aexceedingly deep. ^bWho can find it? ²⁵I ^aturned my heart to know, to explore, and to seek wisdom and an explanation, and to know the wickedness of foolishness and the simpleminded folly of madness. ²⁶And I found more ^abitter than death the woman whose heart is ^bsnares and nets, whose hands are chains. ^cOne who is good before God will escape from her, but ^dthe sinner will be captured by her.

²⁷“See, I have found this,” says the Preacher, “adding one thing to another to find an explanation, ²⁸which my soul still seeks but has not found. I have found one man out of a thousand, but I have not found a ^awoman among all these. ²⁹“See, I have found only this, that ^aGod made men upright, but they have sought out many devices.”